By Rod Rose/The Lebanon Reporter
Lebanon — Two police officers rescued a Lebanon man from a mobile home Friday after an ATV he was warming up burst into flames.
Ammon Davis suffered singed eyebrows but refused medical treatment after the 7:43 a.m. fire, said Lebanon Fire Chief Ted Caldwell.
Lebanon Police Sgt. Tony Bayles and Patrolman Jason Leap coaxed Davis from his home at lot 60 in the Elm Street Trailer Court, 441 W. Elm St., said LPD Lt. Brent Wheat.
Bayles and Leap saw Davis standing in the trailer, “staring at the fire,” Wheat said. Davis appeared to be “just stunned by suddenly realizing his trailer was on fire.” Officers also saved Davis’s miniature poodle.
“I’d say the flames were 30 feet in the air for a moment before the fire department got there,” Wheat said.
Davis was warming up a John Deere Gator ATV and had placed a piece of cardboard on the vehicle, said Lebanon Fire Chief Ted Caldwell. “It flashed on him; that singed his hair and he ran back into the house,” Caldwell said.
Flames spread to a 1995 GMC pickup and then to the trailer’s front porch, Caldwell said. Both vehicles were destroyed and the porch damaged. Caldwell estimated damage at $10,000.
Gas cans, LP gas containers and other items were in the shed, Wheat said.
“There was a huge potential for disaster,” Caldwell said. “We are able to dodge a bullet.”
Caldwell said firefighters on A shift and police “did an excellent job; I can’t say enough about the police department’s cooperation and A shift’s attack.”
